Climate Summit 2014

The Climate Summit 2014 marks a new era of collaboration. Be these city-to-city, city-to-business, city-to-nations, city-to-regions – partnerships are arising from all nooks and corners of the world, and from all kinds of groups, industries and stakeholders. These partnerships are crucial in achieving a meaningful cut in the global GHG emissions.

The Compact of Mayors was launched by ICLEI, C40 and UCLG supported by UN Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change, UN SG Office and UN-Habitatat the Climate Summit 2014. It is, amongst many others, the most important flagship action statement which resulted in an unprecedented collaboration among global networks of local governments, together with strong endorsements from UN agencies, and their subnational, national and global partner.

Action Statements at the Climate Summit 2014 with Engagement of Local and Subnational Governments

The People´s Climate March

At the Summit, Mayors marched the streets of New York and unveiled new initiatives that will catalyze climate action worldwide. They joined the largest-ever march on climate change at "People´s Climate March", under the banner, "People´s Climate, Mayors Commit“.

The March became the largest and most diverse mobilization for climate action in history. To show their commitment to protecting people’s climate, a number of Mayors joined inline with the vision laid out in the their global advocacy under the Local Government Climate Roadmap.

George Ferguson, Mayor of Bristol, UK and European Green Capital 2014, Juergen Nimptsch, Mayor of Bonn, Germany, and Ronan Dantec, Councillor of Nantes, France, European Green Capital 2013 attended, and Frank Cownie, Mayor of Des Moines, Iowa, and Member of Board of ICLEI USA and ICLEI Global Executive Committee all joined in the "moment of silence“ had with more than 400,000 people in New York City. Other participants included Laurent Fabius, French Minister of Foreign Affair, Al Gore, former Vice-President of USA and CEO of the the Climate Reality Project, Bill De Blasio, Mayor of New York City, USA and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The Climate Agenda: towards Lima and Paris

With billions more people soon to live in urban areas by the 2020 period, a structured climate regime workplan requires local action from cities and subnational governments. All stakeholders have a role to play in the challenges we seek to overcome. Catalyzed climate action in the climate agenda currently being developed for ratification in Paris 2015, there requires wide and diverse, collaborative initiative like those had at the Climate Summit 2014.

Activities and submissions by local government constituencies regarding the progress made through local government climate action, with bottom up initiatives, such as those announced at the Climate Summit 2014 are important contributions for the future climate agenda text, with cities and subnational authorities as a core area of focus.

An ambitious and inclusive global climate regime for 2020 and beyond requires a multifarious vision. We are expecting negotiators to connect each and every contribution that has been made so far, including unprecedented, action-oriented, political momentum generated by the UN Secretary General of the Climate Summit 2014 in New York, and enriched by responses from all actors of society.

Recognition of local and subnational authorities, being essential elements to bridging the ambition gap, needs to be sustained in the evolution of the draft text. The eyes are on COP 20 in Lima, Peru for producing a credible and concise draft agreement for Paris 2015 that will accelerate the multifarious implementation of enhanced climate action.